Turkey is one of those destinations that, once you've traveled a few other places, it quickly moves up on the list of cool countries to visit. It's a different travel experience from the rest of Europe, yet not so far off the beaten track that you end up eating dung beetles or other things due to the fact that you can't understand the menu. There are 
crazy landscapes, beautiful beaches, and a vibrant history dating back to Old Testament times (trivia fact: a shocking amount of the Bible was written either in, or to, the various locales of Turkey).
We started our trip in Istanbul. Istanbul is the only major city in the world to cross two continents (although since a continent is an arbitrary delineation defined by men, it really doesn’t mean a whole lot). Situated in both Asia and Europe, it's been a trade route for thousands of years, and was once the center of the Holy Roman Empire. Now, it's a bustling city with millions of residents and all sorts of cool things to see and do, and boasts a skyline dotted with mosques and palaces. In addition, the city is separated by the Strait of Bosphorus, essentially splitting it in two.
While there are a lot of things to see, one of the main attractions is the Grand Bazaar. Something like 10,000 stalls have set up shop within the roofs of the bazaar, and you could spend a week just wandering the corridors. There's also the Spice Market, which is similar, albeit smaller, and is heavy on spices and cooking products, while the Grand Bazaar has everything from knock-off clothing to
the softest bathtowels money can buy. As there are no prices on anything, you haggle with the merchants to pay whatever you think is the right price (regardless of how successful you are with this, things still cost way less than you would get them anywhere else).
The other attractions in Istanbul worth noting are the mosques. First, you have the Hagia Sophia, which wasn't originally a mosque, but since it's an awe-inspiring structure and the country is now 98% Muslim, it was converted into one. The Hagia Sophia was built in about 600 AD, and was so far ahead of it's time that a larger church wasn't built until the Italians completed the Duomo around 1500 AD. Also impressive is the Blue Mosque, a gigantic, umm, mosque, that happens to be blue. Ok, so it doesn't have the most original name - and I clearly don't know any synonyms for "mosque" - but it's pretty cool nonetheless, although the 5:30 am call to prayer was a little hard to sleep through, considering our hotel was about 100 yards away from the loudspeakers mounted on its spires.
Having seen Istanbul, the next leg of our journey took us to Cappadocia, home of the famous fairy chimneys. The fairy chimneys are natural rock formations wherein you have these large mushroom-shaped spires dominating the surrounding lands
cape. It's very surreal, and very cool-looking, and as the best way to see it is via hot air balloon, we climbed in one and took a tour of the countryside. True story – the same air balloon company we took would, one week later, crash one of their balloons and plummet to the earth. As you will see, near-death experiences followed us everywhere on this trip. Other than the fairy chimneys, Cappadocia is a fairly barren landscape, but it also houses an intricate network of caves and other structures carved into the rocks (other structures being, tourist hotels).
While here, we decided to brave a Turkish hamam. For this, they stick you on a warm marble stone, in what is essentially a sauna, and then a big Turkish dude comes out and scrapes your top layer of skin off with a cloth. Sounds brutal, but it wasn’t all that bad. Apparently the Turkish visit a Hamam once a week, which seems a bit much, but hey – when in Turkey…
Leaving Cappadocia, we took an overnight bus to Fethiye, which is on the southern coast. Had a close call on that one, as the bus almost left us at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere without our coats or passports! Oddly, the Turkish keep very clean buses, and stopped on two separate occasions to spend a good half hour washing it from top to bottom.
Our final leg was
in Oludeniz. For some reason, this area has become a vacation hotspot for the British, which is kind of weird, but whatever. It's home to what is billed as "The Blue Lagoon", which is a nice little cove off the Mediterranean where you can sit and look at calm water with trees and hills as the backdrop. We took advantage of some activities in the area, such as rafting, paragliding, and a boat trip, the boat trip being notable in that there was a slide built into and through the boat (it’s the little things that sometimes amuse me). The rafting trip we took was part two of that near-death experience thing, but I’ll let Soph tell you the story in person if you want to hear it. Suffice to say, when we finally got back on land, I felt guilty for having made her go on the trip, so I gave her one of my watershoes to replace the one of hers that had been violently ripped off by the rapids. I then had to carry the raft across hot sharp rocks with only one shoe…
As far as the Turkish people go…they were pretty cool. I mean, when you go to tourist places, you kind of expect everyone to do whatever they can to convince you to part with your cash, but the Turkish were so friendly about it that you can’t help but give them props. They’d make their pitch, laugh and joke, and when it was all said and done, they’d be like “listen – thanks for parting with your cash. Now I really want you to have a good time while you visit my country. Of course, if you need to part with any additional cash, come back to me, otherwise just have a good time”. One of the guys at the restaurant next to our hotel made it his sole
mission of the weekend to feed us a good Turkish dinner. He saw us at another restaurant and flagged us down later, and said “listen – you’ve had their food; now I want to make you a real Turkish dinner. Let me prepare a feast for you.” We said yes, because how can you say no to someone who wants to prepare you a feast? We were then greeted that night with an amazing, off-menu barrage of flavors and spices, and a chef who was extremely happy to see us enjoying his dishes.
All in all, another great destination, and another great trip. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to drink more Turkish coffee – only averaged about two per day. However, I did purchase a cezve, and will be perfecting my technique over the next few months!
crazy landscapes, beautiful beaches, and a vibrant history dating back to Old Testament times (trivia fact: a shocking amount of the Bible was written either in, or to, the various locales of Turkey).We started our trip in Istanbul. Istanbul is the only major city in the world to cross two continents (although since a continent is an arbitrary delineation defined by men, it really doesn’t mean a whole lot). Situated in both Asia and Europe, it's been a trade route for thousands of years, and was once the center of the Holy Roman Empire. Now, it's a bustling city with millions of residents and all sorts of cool things to see and do, and boasts a skyline dotted with mosques and palaces. In addition, the city is separated by the Strait of Bosphorus, essentially splitting it in two.
While there are a lot of things to see, one of the main attractions is the Grand Bazaar. Something like 10,000 stalls have set up shop within the roofs of the bazaar, and you could spend a week just wandering the corridors. There's also the Spice Market, which is similar, albeit smaller, and is heavy on spices and cooking products, while the Grand Bazaar has everything from knock-off clothing to
the softest bathtowels money can buy. As there are no prices on anything, you haggle with the merchants to pay whatever you think is the right price (regardless of how successful you are with this, things still cost way less than you would get them anywhere else).The other attractions in Istanbul worth noting are the mosques. First, you have the Hagia Sophia, which wasn't originally a mosque, but since it's an awe-inspiring structure and the country is now 98% Muslim, it was converted into one. The Hagia Sophia was built in about 600 AD, and was so far ahead of it's time that a larger church wasn't built until the Italians completed the Duomo around 1500 AD. Also impressive is the Blue Mosque, a gigantic, umm, mosque, that happens to be blue. Ok, so it doesn't have the most original name - and I clearly don't know any synonyms for "mosque" - but it's pretty cool nonetheless, although the 5:30 am call to prayer was a little hard to sleep through, considering our hotel was about 100 yards away from the loudspeakers mounted on its spires.
Having seen Istanbul, the next leg of our journey took us to Cappadocia, home of the famous fairy chimneys. The fairy chimneys are natural rock formations wherein you have these large mushroom-shaped spires dominating the surrounding lands
cape. It's very surreal, and very cool-looking, and as the best way to see it is via hot air balloon, we climbed in one and took a tour of the countryside. True story – the same air balloon company we took would, one week later, crash one of their balloons and plummet to the earth. As you will see, near-death experiences followed us everywhere on this trip. Other than the fairy chimneys, Cappadocia is a fairly barren landscape, but it also houses an intricate network of caves and other structures carved into the rocks (other structures being, tourist hotels).While here, we decided to brave a Turkish hamam. For this, they stick you on a warm marble stone, in what is essentially a sauna, and then a big Turkish dude comes out and scrapes your top layer of skin off with a cloth. Sounds brutal, but it wasn’t all that bad. Apparently the Turkish visit a Hamam once a week, which seems a bit much, but hey – when in Turkey…
Leaving Cappadocia, we took an overnight bus to Fethiye, which is on the southern coast. Had a close call on that one, as the bus almost left us at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere without our coats or passports! Oddly, the Turkish keep very clean buses, and stopped on two separate occasions to spend a good half hour washing it from top to bottom.
Our final leg was
in Oludeniz. For some reason, this area has become a vacation hotspot for the British, which is kind of weird, but whatever. It's home to what is billed as "The Blue Lagoon", which is a nice little cove off the Mediterranean where you can sit and look at calm water with trees and hills as the backdrop. We took advantage of some activities in the area, such as rafting, paragliding, and a boat trip, the boat trip being notable in that there was a slide built into and through the boat (it’s the little things that sometimes amuse me). The rafting trip we took was part two of that near-death experience thing, but I’ll let Soph tell you the story in person if you want to hear it. Suffice to say, when we finally got back on land, I felt guilty for having made her go on the trip, so I gave her one of my watershoes to replace the one of hers that had been violently ripped off by the rapids. I then had to carry the raft across hot sharp rocks with only one shoe…As far as the Turkish people go…they were pretty cool. I mean, when you go to tourist places, you kind of expect everyone to do whatever they can to convince you to part with your cash, but the Turkish were so friendly about it that you can’t help but give them props. They’d make their pitch, laugh and joke, and when it was all said and done, they’d be like “listen – thanks for parting with your cash. Now I really want you to have a good time while you visit my country. Of course, if you need to part with any additional cash, come back to me, otherwise just have a good time”. One of the guys at the restaurant next to our hotel made it his sole
mission of the weekend to feed us a good Turkish dinner. He saw us at another restaurant and flagged us down later, and said “listen – you’ve had their food; now I want to make you a real Turkish dinner. Let me prepare a feast for you.” We said yes, because how can you say no to someone who wants to prepare you a feast? We were then greeted that night with an amazing, off-menu barrage of flavors and spices, and a chef who was extremely happy to see us enjoying his dishes.All in all, another great destination, and another great trip. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to drink more Turkish coffee – only averaged about two per day. However, I did purchase a cezve, and will be perfecting my technique over the next few months!
